Weak
by AngelicEnchantress17
Summary: A quick one-shot about how Itachi obtained his necklace.


Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

He is perfect in every sense of the word. Strong, handsome and popular all the girls chase after him. I do my best to ignore him. I tell myself that I don't like his long dark hair or his pale and perfect skin. I tell myself that I hate his perfectly chiseled face and that his six-pack abs mean nothing to me. I wear a mask of indifference whenever he is near and do my best to blend into the crowd and slip away quietly. But it's my indifference that attracts his attention. It's only for an instant, but our eyes meet and my mask is shattered.

Damn him and his eyes. Those hauntingly beautiful black eyes of his that can penetrate all my carefully constructed defenses and make me weak in the knees like all the lovesick fangirls around me. I force myself to tear my gaze away and move away from the crowd. Away from him and his damnable eyes. As I move away I once again tell myself that I don't like him and curse his existence.

I manage to avoid him for a week before he approaches me while I'm training. His usual entourage is missing and I can feel him watching with an air of superiority. Knowing his attention is now fully directed at me, my heart begins to race. Traitorous heart. I stop and face him, my mask carefully in place.

"What do you want Uchiha?"

My voice comes out harsher than I had expected, almost hostile, as I look pointedly at a spot just over his shoulder to avoid his eyes.

"This is where I train."

His reply is blunt, but I can hear the arrogance in his voice as the slightest of smirks graces his lips. His attitude pisses me off and, against my better judgement, I glare defiantly into his eyes.

"I was here first, go train somewhere else."

I muster up all the courage I have left to spit out those words. Cracks are forming in my mask and I pray he doesn't notice. His smirk broadens and in a flash, I find myself pinned to a tree with a kunai pressed against my throat. The mask is gone and my heart thumping so loudly I swear that he can hear it too. I close my eyes to avoid the fact that our faces are uncomfortably close. But they snap back open in shock when I can feel his hot breath on the shell of my ear.

"Make me."

His command is whispered softly into my ear and it take me a few seconds to realize the cold metal of the kunai is no longer against my throat and he is standing across the clearing. The expression on his face clearly indicating that I am to make the first attack. My attacks are quick, but not quick enough. Most of them miss and the few that manage to make contact don't even seem to phase him. He is done waiting for me and goes on the offensive. Again, I am too slow and our sparring match ends with me face down in the dirt and his knee in my back.

"You're too weak. Come back here at this time tomorrow."

With that he gets up and leaves, leaving me to reflect on his words and what just happened. What he said leaves me feeling a mixture of things but mostly, much to my annoyance, excited. I go home and wash off the blood and grime then tend to the injuries he left me with. He was not gentle. I look in the mirror and see a vivid bruise forming on my cheek as a result of my failure to block a punch. I force some chakra into my injuries to partially heal the worst ones before I collapse on my bed from exhaustion.

We continue to meet at the training grounds each week. No words are exchanged, we just fight and at the end he always calls me weak then leaves. He never helps me up, nor does he apologize when he injures me badly. It's always the same. I am always just a little too slow and he is just as unreadable as ever. One time he breaks my leg and it is only because the bone is sticking through my skin that he helps me. He carries me the mile from our training ground to the hospital. As I'm on his back I tell myself that I don't enjoy being held by him. But it is a sad attempt. It is weak, like me. When we get to the hospital he sets me down on a chair before turning and leaving. He says nothing but turns to look at me one last time before walking out of sight. It's barely noticeable but there is a slight change in his facial expression and I catch a brief glimpse of something I've never seen out of him before. Remorse? I quickly dismiss the notion as a delusion brought on by the pain of my broken leg. The medics reset my leg and heal the skin and fracture before bandaging it and sending me home on crutches telling me to stay off my leg for the nest two weeks to give the muscles time to heal.

I return to the training ground two weeks later and am shocked to find him there waiting for me. He quietly regards my healed leg before getting into a combative stance and waiting for me to make the first move as always. This time he seems to avoid hitting the leg he had broken and seems to be going easy one me. My suspicions are confirmed when he lets me win our match.

"I am glad your leg has finally healed. I was getting bored."

His words made my heart leap into my throat as I tried not to let him see how happy I was to hear him tell me something that wasn't a blatant insult. I did my best to remain indifferent because I had convinced myself that my indifference was why he sparred with me. The next day we sparred and he was back to his usual cold self and again I was left in defeat with him calling me weak as he left.

Two months later he hadn't yet shown up for our usual match. After waiting for him for 30 minutes I started to make my way over to the Uchiha compound to see if he had been called away on a mission and forgot to tell me. But when I get there I get the feeling that something has gone horribly wrong. The streets and houses are completely dark and I can hear screams in the distance. My heart stops and I go into a cold sweat when I see the corpses on the blood soaked street around the corner. I frantically run down the street calling out his name. There is fear and desperation in my voice and I make no effort to conceal it. I finally find him in front of his house. I run over to him and throw my arms around him in relief. Surprisingly, not only does he allow me to do this, he returns my embrace. I look up at his face just in time to see black eyes bleed to red before everything goes black.

I wake up the next morning in the hospital, with two ANBU standing guard at my door. I'm interrogated about what I saw before they tell me that Itachi killed his clan and tortured his younger brother. My heart shatters at the news and I instinctively move my hand to my necklace for comfort only to find it missing. I angrily ask the ANBU what they did with it only to have them tell me that I wasn't wearing one when they found my lying in the street. I later find out from Sasuke that Itachi had been wearing it when he killed his parents and attacked him.

I spend the next two weeks in my room crying. Not over the loss of the necklace, but at the feelings of betrayal I had now directed at Itachi. We had become comrades, friends even. I had come to value the time we would spend sparring. But he was gone now, and if I ever saw him again I knew that we would be enemies. It was for this reason that I began to refuse missions to foreign lands. I had no desire to face him yet. My heart still ached for him despite all the very good reasons I should despise him.

Eventually though, I have no choice. The Hokage is dead and so are many of our ninja. I can't refuse missions to foreign lands anymore. I no longer have the luxury.

It's a simple escort mission to the Land of Tea. It is only a fluke that I sense his chakra nearby, he has always been able to conceal it from me. I tell the rest of my squad to continue on while I go to investigate. I find him in a clearing, waiting. He doesn't look surprised to see me. It's been 5 years since I've last seen him and nothing has changed. He is still perfect. Still untouchable. He looks at me with Sharingan and I look away, I still remember what happened the last time he looked at me with those eyes.

He is now standing an arms length away. Before I have time to react his hand shoots out and catches my chin. I feel him pull my face upward and close my eyes.

"Look at me."

It's not a request. Numbly I comply, he's already caught me and I'm powerless to stop him.

Red eyes fade to black. Before I can register what's happening, I feel his lips brush up roughly against mine. They're much softer than I had expected. As I return his kiss, there is a sudden pain in my abdomen. It takes a moment for me to register what just happened. Itachi calmly steps back and holds up a kunai covered in my blood. I place my hands over the wound and apply pressure, but the flow of hot blood will not slow down. My eyes are then drawn to his neck. My necklace is still there.

I fall to my knees and watch as Itachi discards the bloody kunai into the tree next to me. My breathing is speeding up and it's getting harder to keep my eyes open. I am about to die, but before I do I want to see his face one last time. He may have killed me, but for some strange stupid reason I still love him. He is smiling at me, but his eyes are still cold. I no longer have the strength to sit up and fall sideways to the ground and he comes towards me again. I hear him stop in front of me. His hot breath is in my ear again, and I struggle to remain conscious. I want to hear what he has to say.

"You're still weak."

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

AN: This is my first attempt at writing anything in the 1st person. Any feedback (Positive or otherwise) is welcome.


End file.
